In a two-day electronic media arts and culture gathering in the city of Novi Sad in Serbia, a few kilometres beyond the EU's new transnational border, the Picnic brought together artists, theoreticians and media practitioners from across Europe to explore the changing cultural and artistic landscape within and beyond this new conglomerate of competing cultures, economies and identities.

On May 1, 2004 the EU expanded beyond its current "core Europe" constellation to include, for the first time, nations of the former Eastern and non-aligned blocks. For these ten nations, the "day of accession" is the opportunity to rejoin a European sphere that, for many, was felt to have been taken away by the militarily enforced alliances of the Cold War.

By recalling the pan-European Picnic of 1989 along the Austrian-Hungarian border, which induced the events leading to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Trans-European Picnic marked the resulting shift in Europe's geopolitical structure. For many, however, the "opening" brought about by the events of 1989 were met by "managed closure", restricted mobility, the revival of "visa regimes" delineating new barriers and borders, as well as the imposition of new top-down regulations, bureaucracies and standards.

The Trans-European Picnic provided a platform of debate and exchange for the evolving sense of identity and new forms of collaboration active in countering the growing gap separating the Europe of the "Out-side" from the Europe of the "In-side".